Memories | The Smashing Pumpkins

Only good memory from my high school years

Luz Yalj Buenos Aires, AR

My high school years were hard. Not many friends, different interests and background from that of my classmates. My best friend of those years passed away this very day, Oct 23rd, in 2012. Her name was Sole, and when MCIS came out we were 15 and we used to play. it day and night. I treasure this album enormously and will play it today as usual, as an homage to both SP and Sole.

Poetry

Cheyney Idyllwild-Pine Cove, US

When I was a teenager I was always hungry for new music, but I was not happy with what was popular at the moment. One day I found a Melon Collie album cover missing its CDs but I read the lyrics of all this songs because it was like poetry. When I finally heard it, it was better than I imagined. It remains a major influence on me and a standard of what a great album should be like; deep and diverse.

THE album

Libertad Larrieu Hollywood, FL, US

When I was 20years old (2015) I was at the Swap Shop in sunrise, south Florida. I knew of the Smashing Pumpkins by hit songs my friends had mentioned but as I passed a random stand, there was the 2 cd, Mellon collie and the infinite sadness album. I bought it for $2. When I later opened it, there was a 1997 concert ticket from their Mellon collie and the infinite sadness tour date in American Airlines Arena Miami. I later fell in love with the music, I still have and play the cds, and to this day I say if I could only listen to one album for the rest of my life it would be Mellon collie and the Infinite Sadness.

Thank you Smashing Pumpkins, you’ve made my heart beat different.

Teenage machine

Aurora Cano Dublin, IE

This album was my first contact with the band.

I was 14 and on a trip from my small town to Madrid, where my cousin showed me the double LP (Vynil) When I saw the artwork, I was immediately impressed and I felt a connection to it. He recorded it for me in two tapes and listened to them over and over again in my walkman on the bus on the way back to my town.

Once there I ran to buy the CD, photocopied the booklet and created the folder in the picture with my favourite lyrics and some other pictures to bring to school.

Since then, I’ve been a huge fan of the band! I was able to see them live for the first time in Bilbao’s guggenheim museum in ’98 and have seen them 7 more times since then! Last one in London only a couple of years ago.

SP forever! <3

The end of Endless.

Kégyne Saunders Cape Town, ZA

I grew up in Cape Town, South Africa. Mostly consumed by the freedoms of childhood and being in close proximity of the beach, I grew to be fascinated by the ocean and nature.

As I aged, the experiences of life came to fruition, the real experiences – good and bad. Amazing … Somr awful.

During a hard time, my uncle exposed me to Siamese Dream. I started playing guitar. I would go to parties, friends, and play Cherub Rock, Mayonaise .. On whatever I could get my hands on.

Some time passed, time changed, and I grew. I knew one day I would return but I had what I wanted from the music.

Again, times of trouble came my way … I found Ava Adore, and MCIS. Again … These songs helped me heal, I felt that I related to the messages and stories told. Not in a Manson way but at least emotionally, and with the real feelings embedded into every song.

Thank you. Sorry for the long message. SP has inspired me, and contributed to my healing. Towards continuing the adventures with a smile.

Thank you Billy

Mike Buffalo, NY, US

Back in 1996 when I was just 15 years old, I fell in love with the Pumpkins after hearing 1979 on the radio. My cousin Billy was a huge fan that I didn’t get to see much, and he made me a cassette copy of CD 2 on a random visit that I listened to non-stop in my walkman for the entire summer. I knew every single word to every song on that tape. Eventually I was able to save up and buy the entire album, and was finally able to listen to CD 1! I really think hearing an album that way made it extra special, and while Billy is no longer with us today – I think about him whenever I hear a song from MCIS. RIP Billy.

Forever a ZERO

Gary Bingaman II Mishawaka, US

25 years ago, today, an album was released that … in no exaggeration…. shaped my mindset and became the soundtrack to my adolescence and beyond. MELLON COLLIE AND THE INFINITE SADNESS by THE SMASHING PUMPKINS is an album that comes around once in a lifetime and leaves an impact like an atom bomb. It defined an era… it resonated with it’s generation and inspired future ones. It’s melodic songs are beautiful and it’s rock is raw and powerful. It’s empowering… tragic…. inspiring…. heartbreaking and honest. It’s life in it’s true and honest form. Nothing sounded like it before…. nothing has since.

Thank You, Billy and company for this gift… and everything that you’ve given us before and since. You are Artists in the truest sense. 🖤 I look forward to everything that you have in store for us in the future. THANK YOU

Babies

Erika Covina , US

This album came my senior year, and it was everything, shortly after high school I had my first child and I played it while in labor. My doctor said he was pleasantly shocked he expected something hard core by the name of the band. My son now an adult thinks it’s so awesome that he was born to great music and has said this was his introduction to music.

Texture + Sound

Howie Los Angeles, US

This album is very special and important because it raised the bar in the grunge era from strong and angst albums to fully realized rock art pieces. The depth and texture hidden around corners on this record arw once in a generation. There are iconic radio hits, Shakespearean fairytales, ballads, and longform epic jams. Whatever inroads siamese dream created, MCIS cemented the pumpkins in their own, singular world. I bought this record the day it came out and still listen to it fairly regularly. There are times when I’m away from it for a while and miss songs like old friends. The clearest memories it brings back are living in a shoebox dorm room in the UK in 1996 with MCIS as my only record.

Healing

Chris Carlson Hollister, Missouri , US

MCIS has been with me my entire adult life. It spoke to me at 18, and it speaks to me now. In 2015, my wife was diagnosed with breast cancer. As we waited in the doctor’s office, 1979 came on. For a while after, I hated it. But now it’s a reminder of healing. I’m happy to say that my wife was healed of her cancer. We are blessed. MCIS is as meaningful now, as it ever has been.

Blessed and Cursed and Won

Jonathan Ness Rockford, Minnesota, US

I’ll never forget getting stuck in Duluth, MN during a blizzard, keeping my dad and I from getting home. I was supposed to be at school the next morning, but after being bullied by the faculty, neither my dad or I were too bothered by me missing a day. My memory comes from the drive home, where I first found my love of the Smashing Pumpkins. We left early at 7 AM, and we blasted Rotten Apples the entire way home. There’s nothing more glorious than hearing Tonight, Tonight while driving through Duluth. Ever since my pumpkins love has only grown, and now I can’t think of a band I love more. After years of struggle, I’ve always related to the lyrics of Muzzle, because it’s true for me. After all I’ve been through, my life has been “blessed and cursed and won.”

Magic at night

Elena Vardon Toronto, Ontario, CA

I remember being 12 years old, visiting my cousins, who lived in a large, old house overlooking a ravine. At one point I went upstairs to get something, and I was all alone on the top floor of the house as the muted sounds of everyone else enjoying themselves floated up from the distance outside. One of the bedrooms had its door open and a radio was playing from inside, and “Tonight Tonight” came on just as I was about to head back downstairs. When I heard the opening of the song, I stopped in the middle of the hall. I knew the song. I’d heard it a couple times before, and it was magical. I couldn’t just walk away from it—especially since this was before the internet and streaming and “on-demand” everything—because it was playing then, in that moment, just for me. So I stood there, alone on the quiet, dark top floor of the house, and I listened to the whole song as it emanated from the tinny speakers of an old alarm clock radio. I could still hear the sounds of people having fun in the distance below me, but it seemed worth missing out for a few minutes to spend that time in audial splendour.

I got the album not long after, and I would listen to it as I fell asleep at night, thinking about the wide and distant world beyond me, and remembering that day when I stood alone as that song entered my heart and stayed there.

Cupid De Locke

Mallary Nelson La Porte, TX, US

When I was in junior high, I was obsessed with Smashing Pumpkins (I still am). I would sit in my bath tub with Mellon Collie playing on repeat from start to finish. It would take me away from any stress going on in my life. I would zone out to “Bodies” and “Cupid De Locke”. The album has been there for me through my hardest times. I moved away to Montana and on my way to a ski town, I blared the album while watching the snow fall. I finally saw SP live last summer here in Houston and cried from pure happiness. This album gave me so much magic as a teen when I felt out of place at times and still takes me to a magical place any time I listen. Thank you for speaking to me in a language I can hear 😉

Soundtrack to my first crush

Wim Verpoorten BE

I was 14 years old when Mellon Collie came out, and soon afterwards had my first crush (during the summer of 1996). Apart from the whole album being a totally new musical experience for me on that young age, it was the softer songs that really got to me once I had this huge crush (which did not last too long unfortunately, another new and necessary experience!). I would listen to those songs endlessly while becoming more and more in love with that girl. Still to this day, all those songs bring me back to those days, to a period in my life where everything felt fresh, innocent and strangely out-of-reach in a way which was both hurting me and satisfying me in equal measure. You can tell it was during my puberty, can’t you? 🙂 This album holds a special place in my heart and always will.

It’s hard to find angels in hell

Francisco Guanajuato, MX

It’s just me and my best friend listening to MCIS in 2009 (High school), then he gave me the authentic guitar tab in 2015, probably the best gift ever.

The same year I played By Starlight to my wife when she said “Yes” to “Will you marry me?”

I’m 27 now, I’m still playing every single song.

“And I knew the silence of the world…”

Finite Sadness

Cam Miller Dayton, KY , US

I was not prepared for what Mellon Collie would do to my soul. My machine was not sad. My boredom was not in the bathroom. I was a young father. I was working two jobs. I was creating music and film every single day. And this opus dropped from the sky, guided by starlight The sounds shredded me. The visions awakened me. I was inspired. I continue to be.

Car Jouneys with my dad

Lauren Mallen Fife , GB

When I was a kid my dad used to play porcelina of the vast oceans in the car and would have it on the highest volume possible. We’d drive at night when he would pick me up from my mum’s, and I loved the way it would gradually build so I asked him to play it all the time. My favourite part was always the way Billy says “without a care in this whole world” because that’s exactly how I felt when I listened to it.

Guided Somewhere by Sadness

Dave Montreal, Quebec, CA

High school. 1995. A crush who didn’t reciprocate. Heartbreak scored by songs so sad I could barely listen at times. A song for everything I feel and am. Identifying absolutely with the album.Walking home at night singing and looking for flying mice…

The passage of time, eventually. The changing of meanings, but the continued importance of the work to me as I grow as a person: I customize my guitar after something familiar….

25 years later, I still sing “We Only Come Out At Night” to myself on the way home at dusk on cool fall evenings while I look for bats. I still identify. And when I do experience heartbreak now…it is still there for me.

Dawn To Dusk, Twilight to Starlight

Alfie Palermo Petaling Jaya, MY

This album was more than an album, it was a compass: whose lyrics were scrawled over torn jeans and cheap shoes, blew holes in my wallet on at least 4 occasions (twice on cassette, twice on CD), only to be lost and bartered to friends, weary but like-minded travellers looking for respite in the abstract algorithms of soft and loud, from dawn to dusk, twilight to starlight, played under different skies, in different lands, at different times, and even though I was always changing, always wandering – I was never lost. This was the compass that brought me home, reminded me of who I was, and who I may yet become – and for that I thank you from the bottom of my heart.

Sum of Its Parts

Dustin Pierce Springdale, PA, US

I was a poor kid when MCIS came out, and didn’t have either a CD player or much disposable income. So between October of 95 and November of 96, I purchased the cassette singles as they were released. I grew to love not just the singles, but also the b-sides like Believe, Rotten Apples, and Transformer.

Christmas of 1996, my brothers and I received some off-brand discmans (discmen) and I received Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness. Beyond just listening to this epic, I also took the lyrics booklet to school, where I committed to memorizing the words between classes. It’s still in my regular rotation.

Smashing Pumpkins - Memories!